The Crawford Deal: did Blair sign up for war at Bush'sTexas ranch in April 2002?

We know that arguments raged about the legality of thewar right up to a crucial cabinet meeting on 17 March2003, two days before the attack began. But now newevidence pieced together by the 'IoS' strongly backsthe suspicion that the PM had already made thedecision to strike a year earlier. By Raymond Whitaker27 February 2005

It was one of the most tense cabinet meetings DowningStreet had seen in living memory. "We were on thebrink of war," recalled Clare Short, who was there.The consequences would be dramatic, not only for thoseround the table, but for millions of Iraqis andhundreds of thousands of British and American troops.

The date was 17 March 2003, only two days before thewar to oust Saddam Hussein was launched. "Theatmosphere was very fraught by then," Ms Short, thenInternational Development Secretary, said last week.Experts in international law were saying the impendingconflict was illegal, her officials were concerned,and the military was demanding a clear statement ofthe legal position....

Mr. Hollinger is Preston Hotchkis Professor andDepartment Chair at the University of California,Berkeley.

On Sunday January 9, 2005 a panel devoted to thehistory scandals was held at the American HistoricalAssociation's annual meeting. Mr. Hollinger deliveredthe following paper.

One of the apparent academic scandals recentlypublicized by the media is the alleged lack of balancein the academic profession, including the disciplineof history, but also the other social sciences andhumanities, and even the physical and biologicalsciences. This scandalous lack of balance, often saidto follow from a scandalous pattern of discriminationin faculty hiring, is measured in several surveysgiven wide attention in the New York Times, othermainstream newspapers, and especially on cable newschannels. The surveys measure the number ofRepublicans and Democrats in various academicdepartments and campuses and they measure the degreeof sympathy faculty express for the government ofIsrael and for the Palestinian opposition to thatgovernment. Balance, in the discourse to which Irefer, is defined in terms of political orientationsin general and party affiliation in particular.

I thought of this putative scandal while reading thehighly engaging papers by Ron Robin and Jon Wiener. Iwant to discuss this additional scandal, which Ibelieve marks an important moment in the relationshipof academia to society, by way of extending the scopeof the inquiry that Ron and Jon have undertaken.

I note that in all of the cases Ron and Jon analyze,the parties all assume that there is a set of rulesthat governs the behavior of the scholar, and that thepoints at issue are exactly what those rules are, howimportant or trivial the rules are, who sets therules, who decides what shall count as a violation ofthe rules, and who actually enforces the rules. Hencea vital element of any perspective on academicscandals, we learn from the two papers before us, isthe location and texture of the boundary between aprofessional community on the one hand, and the largersociety on the other. Jon especially explores thepower of constituencies outside academia to determinejust which violations of academia’s own rules shall betreated as important and how severe or mild thepenalties shall be....

3) Disappearing folks in Italy. Perhaps the Italianrule of law was insufficiently brisk. Consideringthat the individual in question has disappeared, howis this different than contractors' kidnappings inIraq? A lack of TV footage?:

An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparentkidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in thestreets of Milan served military authorities this weekwith a demand for records of flights into and out of ajoint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy.

Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor,Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role ofthe U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (news - websites) in the disappearance of Osama Nasr MostafaHassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure inMilan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17,2003...

4) Iraqi Marshland Article:

"Restoring the Marshlands of Iraq

The marshes of southern Iraq were once the largestwetland in the Middle East and home to an indigenouspopulation of tens of thousands of marsh dwellers.They were also a major flyway for migrating birds.Today, less than 10% of the marshes in Iraq remain asfully functioning wetlands because of extensivedrainage and upstream agricultural irrigation programson the Tigris and Euphrates rivers implemented duringSaddam Hussein's regime.

Richardson et al. (p. 1307) provide an assessment ofthe ecological status of the Iraqi marshes since the2003 war. Nearly 20% of the original 15,000-square-kilometer marsh area was reflooded by March2004. Reflooding has partly restored some of theformer marsh areas. However, high salinity andtoxicity may persist in reflooded marshes unlessflow-through of fresh water is maintained by carefulhydraulic design. It seems that the marshes can berestored as long as sound ecological restorationprinciples are followed."

I first noticed the pattern last year with the AbuGhraib torture scandal exploding. By now it's beyond atrend. Closer to an established fact. Plain for all tosee -- and it suggests a significant breakdown of someunknown sort at the Department of Defense.

On April 28, 2004, with Sy Hersh about to scoop them,the journalists at CBS ran a story about crimescommitted by American soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraibprison on its 60 Minutes II program. It included thenow infamous torture photographs as well asinformation on the military's own "scathing report" onthe subject, which would later become known (by itsauthor's name) as the Taguba Report....

6) This is incendiary stuff. I do not mean to implyfull endorsement of Mr. Shamir's views by posting themhere:

Biography:Israel Shamir

A Jewish folk tale relates the story of a mute childwho had never said a word despite all the efforts ofthe doctors. Then one day, at the ripe age of ten, hedropped his spoon and cried out, "The soup is toosalty!" His parents asked him in amazement why he hadkept silent for years, and the child replied, "Untilnow, everything was all right".

That is the story of Israel Shamir's sudden appearancein the English-language media. This leadingRussian-Israeli intellectual, writer, translator andjournalist did not write in English until January2001, when Israeli attacks on Palestinians forced himto give up literature and turn to politics.

A native of Novosibirsk, Siberia, a grandson of aprofessor of mathematics and a descendant of a Rabbifrom Tiberias, Palestine, he studied at theprestigious School of the Academy of Sciences, andread Math and Law at Novosibirsk University. In 1969,he moved to Israel, served as paratrooper in the armyand fought in the 1973 war. After his military servicehe resumed his study of Law at the Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem, but abandoned the legal profession inpursuit of a career as a journalist and writer. He gothis first taste of journalism with Israel Radio, andlater went freelance. In 1975, Shamir joined the BBCand moved to London.

After returning to Israel in 1980, Shamir wrote forthe Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz and the newspaperAl Hamishmar, and worked in the Knesset as thespokesman for the Israel Socialist Party (Mapam). Hiswork was published and reprinted many times in bothIsrael and in Russia. His most popular work, The Pineand the Olive, the story of Palestine/Israel, waspublished in 1988. Its cover carried a painting by theRamallah painter, Nabil Anani.

As the first Palestinian Intifada began, Shamir hadleft Israel for Russia, where he covered the eventfulyears 1989-1993. While in Moscow, he reported forHa’aretz, but was sacked for publishing an articlecalling to the return the Palestinian refugees and therebuilding of their ruined villages. He wrote forvarious Russian newspapers and magazines, includingthe daily Pravda and the weekly Zavtra. In 1993, hereturned to Israel and settled in Jaffa.

In response to the second Palestinian Intifada, Shamirhas abandoned his literary occupation and resumed hiswork as a journalist. In the midst of the endless talkof a "Two State solution", Shamir, along with EdwardSaid, has become a leading champion of the "One Man,One Vote, One State" solution in all ofPalestine/Israel. His most recent essays have beencirculating widely on the Internet and are now postedon many prominent media sites. With every new article,Shamir is establishing himself as a journalist whosework speaks to the aspirations of both the Israelisand the Palestinians.

Shamir (55) lives in Jaffa, he is father of two sons.

Jews and the EmpireBy Israel Shamir

(A Talk given in the House of Lords, Westminster, onFebruary 23, 2005)

Ladies and Lords, Gentlemen, Friends,

It is a great honour for this small writer fromfar-away Jaffa to speak to you in this ancient abodeof democracy and aristocracy intertwined, and I wishto thank my host tonight, my dear brother, hislordship Nazir Ahmed of Rotherham in the heather-boundYorkshire. I would give much to have another dearfriend present here, the late Sir Robin, LordPhillimore for much of my love and understanding ofEngland is due to this friendship. I was but a pup, ayoung journalist, who came to work at your renownedBBC, and the Lord Phillimore was my bridge and myguide to the good old England of Pickwick Papers, forhis home stood in this most English swat of land nearHenley-on-Thames. Thus England became a love of myyouth, England of pubs serving Brakespear OldFashioned ale, of neat green squares of Kensingtonwhere I lived, of milk bottles on doorstep, of thepunchy smell of bacon-and-eggs and burned toast in themorning, of the pleasant feel of the Guardian pages,of the calm bonhomie of English people, of your lovelymaidens who are able to propose and prepare a nice cupof tea in the least suitable moment, of your men withtheir fair play, the green sweet and somewhatparochial England of Blake, Hopkins, Waugh and G KChesterton, England as opposed to the Empire.

Much as I love England I came to dislike the Empire.The Empire was a vile 19th century invention. TheEmpire ruined Iraq and used poison gases against itscitizens long before the present Bush-and Blairoffensive. No land was too far or too near to be safefrom the Imperial assaults: from Shimonoseki in Southof Japan to Gondor in mountains of Ethiopia, fromBeijing to Archangelsk, from the fishermen’ city ofOriente in Brittany to Baghdad, from Dublin toKandagar, from Dresden in Saxony to Akka in Palestine,the Empire bombed them all. And I do not speak of somelong gone days of Queen Anne, but of last hundredfifty years since the fateful accent of your firstZionist ruler, Lord Beaconsfield.

In our country, in Palestine, much of present sorrowsare result of the Imperial intervention. The firstIntifada, the great Arab revolt of 1936-1939, causedby the creeping Zionist takeover, was crushed by theImperial forces with great severity. Thousands ofnative Palestinians were killed, executed, hanged,expelled from their land. The Arab defeat, al-Nakba of1948 can’t be understood without the context of theprevious Imperial war against the Palestinians. TheZionist armies administered the coup-de-grace to thedisarmed, bleeding, powerless rural population whoseelite and best fighters were eliminated by the Empire.

Oh, you say, why should we remember it now? We can’tlet bygones be bygones for the Empire is not a thingof past. Like a monstrous parasite it migrated aftersucking the juice of the Brits. Its capital wasrelocated to Washington and New York, while Englandremained a subservient part of Empire, a Greece to theNew Rome, or rather a Tyre to the new Carthage. Notonly your RAF assists the Americans, but your BBC,once a paragon of objectivity, became a propagandatool for the New Empire.

I did not come to condemn you but to offer mycondolences, for England is one of the Imperialvictims. I came first time to your land some thirtyyears ago, and since then the Empire eats you up asmuch as it eats everybody else. London became afaceless cosmopolitan city, your cinema is destroyed,your streets are taken by international chains ofshops, your newspapers belong to Zionists, and thereis a danger the English will be turned into human dustby the Imperial burden as the Romans and Macedoniansof old, to be followed by the Americans.

The Empire is not particularly good for people,including the people of the mother country. Let usconsider Palestine. Thousands of young British mendied in order to conquer Palestine and give it to theJews. They committed many atrocities, killed a lot ofnatives, and enforced Jewish supremacy in Palestine.They received no gratitude. Elder people mayberemember the subsequent Zionist terrorist attacks onthe British troops, the assassination of Lord Moyne,maybe they remember the two British sergeants who werekidnapped and hanged by the Jews, and their deadbodies were defiled, booby-trapped by the killers.Menachem Begin, our late Prime Minister, wasparticularly proud of it. Younger people won’t evenknow it, for your media, the mind and the nervoussystem of the nation, is hijacked by Zionists likeConrad Black and Murdock, and they won’t allow thisknowledge to be remembered.

But it is vital to remember, for the new empirecontinues the ways of the old. Now in Iraq, the US andits British dependency continue the same old fight forensuring Jewish supremacy in the Middle East, forEngland – or even English business – has no need to bein Baghdad and Basra. Indeed, in the Middle East wehave just one reason for wars, terror and trouble –and that is Jewish supremacy drive. In our country,Israel or Palestine, we can have peace today, if wewere to agree to equality of Jew and non-Jew. But thisprinciple, so carefully observed in Europe, isanathema to the Jews in Israel. Like in England beforethe reforms of 1832, your predecessors would not agreeto equality of a lord and a commoner before the law;or in Rhodesia of Ian Smith, the white settlers didnot want to be equal with the blacks.

Well, so Jews do not want to be equal. But why shouldyou assist them in their pursuit of supremacy? Thereis an American joke [of Jay Leno]: "If God doesn’tdestroy Hollywood Boulevard, he owes Sodom andGomorrah an apology." Indeed, if England keepssupporting the apartheid Jewish state, it owes anapology to Rhodesia and South Africa. Why, indeed, itdoes? This is not a rhetoric question. Why the NewEmpire went to war, committed itself to the vastexpenses and dangers, antagonised bigger part of theworld – and all that in the interests of Jewishsupremacy?

In my book – that is the one I came to promote – I tryto explain why the Jews have a special place in theImperial conscience. Superficially, one can explain itby personalities, by the special position of theNeo-cons in Washington and of the Jewish media-lordsin the US and elsewhere. Jews indeed own, control andedit a big share of mass media, this mainstay ofImperial thinking; just last month a Rothschild boughtthe French daily Liberacion, and an Israeli citizenbought a TV 4 channel in Sweden. This is a validobservation, but not sufficient.

The New Empire, even more than the old one, is infusedwith Judaic values on an ideological and theologicallevel. This is the thing I try to deal with, becausepreoccupation with ethnic or religious origins of aperson is not only improper but often misleading.Indeed, the strongest enemies of the Judaic values areoften people of Jewish origin. Allow me to mention StPaul, Karl Marx and Simone Weil to make my pointclear. Another example can be provided by Sir CarlPopper, a colleague of yours who referred to theJudaic concept of chosen-ness as ‘vile’. He alsorejected an approach of a Jewish Year Book to have himincluded, for he said, he does not believe in race andhas nothing to do with Jewish faith or values –despite his Jewish origin. Do not concentrate onethnics, look for ideology. In your case, MichaelHoward is less Judaic than Tony Blair, for the firstobjects to removal of British liberties and tosweeping anti-Muslim legislation, while the secondbrought this country into the Iraqi war for Israeliinterests.

While a Judaic tendency is just an ideologicaltendency, a special feeling towards Jews is a symptomof certain pro-Imperial predisposition. For instance,Tony Blair is a great supporter of the Empire. Buteven if we would not know that, we would be able toguess: for he expressed unlimited support of theJewish state. The Jewish state is the country where aJew has more rights than a non-Jew. Three to fourmillion of our native residents have neither right ofvote nor citizenship rights for a single fault: theyare not Jews. Do not forget, Rhodesia was dismantledfor the equal sin of ethnic or racial supremacy.

This feeling that ‘Jews are special’ found now its_expression in the story of Ken Livingstone and hissin coming hard on the heels of Prince Harry and hismishap. Actually, I have heard that at the nextcostume ball, Prince Harry will be dressed as KenLivingstone. The Ken’s story is simple: the Mayor wasrude to a hack. Being a journalist, I sympathise withthe journalist; but being rude to is our professionalhazard. However, the insult was blown well over normalproportions. If Ken would be equally insulting to amember of Royal family, he will be forgiven if notencouraged. But here – even the Students’ Uniondecided to ban Ken.

Your anti-racist feelings do not come into it. Sometime ago I watched the Hard Talk with Tim Sebastian onthe BBC. Tim was grilling a Uganda Asian businessmanliving in England. He told him: well, you Asians inUganda were heavily engaged in the black marketactivities, smuggled hard currency abroad, despisedthe natives and refused to marry them. Actually thesame accusations were traditionally levelled againstJews. If Tim would just try to say it to a Jew hewould be kicked out of his job same day. But appliedto the Muslims – they did not cause a stir. It wasjust a Hard Talk. So it is not ‘anti-racism’. In myview, this unbelievable out-of-proportion response toKen’s affair shows again a mysterious connection ofJews and the new Empire.

One reason is that Jews like an Empire. If there is achoice between an England and an Empire, the Jewsprefer an Empire. Benjamin Ginsberg, the Professor ofPolitical Science at John Hopkins University, wrote abook on this subject, called Jews and the State: TheFatal Embrace and he attests to this Jewish love ofEmpire. Any Empire: Franz Josef, the last Emperor ofAustro-Hungarian Empire, used to say that Jews are themost loyal of his subjects. In your country, Disraeliwas equally proud of his Jewish ancestry and devotedto the Empire-building.

A Jewish joke tells of two Jewish brothers inrevolutionary Odessa; one of them emigrated to Englandand became a peer of the realm, another one remainedin Russia, suffered as much as anybody, and eventuallythe Russian brother was invited by his British brotherto London. The brother arrived, received Englishcitizenship, had whale of time, went to Covent Garden,maybe to the Palace, at night the brothers come home,and the Russian brother began to cry. “Oh do not cry,told him the English brother, you had your life, I hadmine, it could happen other way around.” “You did notunderstand me, - says the Russian brother, - I weepfor India we have lost”.

This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews changetheir allegiance – indeed, the same people who wereall for the Russian or French or British Empire nowbecame ardent supporters on the new American Empire.Simple minds call it ‘treacherous behaviour’, but itis actually love of Empire per se, and it does notmatter who is the titular head of this Empire: Jewsare good for an Empire, as long as they feel theEmpire is good for them.

Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community inEngland. In my view, Islam is a form of Christianity,even nearer to the Nicene Creed than some Pentecostalsor other American denominations. What is moreimportant, they are now on the side of freedom,against the Empire, and they are not afraid ofenforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. Thiscommunity is very important in order to turn the tide.Let us hope that its introduction will be importantfor England’s future.

This is the right time to overcome left-right divide:if Michael Howard stands on the right –for liberties -and Blair stands on the left – and for anti-Muslimlegislation, for police control and for war, the termshave little relevance today. There are friends andenemies of the Empire in all your major politicalparties, and equally all the parties areZionist-infiltrated. There is a need for newrealignment in order to unite anti-Imperial forces forfull withdrawal of British troops from overseas, forindependence of England from the American Empire.

In the Apple Cart by Bernard Shaw, the US makes a bidto take over England, and a wise monarch keeps itsindependence. Disentanglement of England from the USembrace is much needed, an answer to the Boston TeaParty is called for.